Played in a main event of the GBPT Edinburgh festival tonight. Today was day 1b of the £550 freezeout, and had 90 runners (the first day had 84), generating a ~£87k prize pool with £20k to the winner.
Cheers to my stakers for this event, who had £350 of the £550 total buy-in between them, leaving me with £200 riding. I'll definately be looking for more staking into events like this in future as - despite the weak field - I can't justify putting up $1k of my bankroll, the variance is just too high.
First Table (deliciously fishy)My starting table was really good. Had a couple of guys across from me to my left that seemed like good players, but the rest of the table were really soft. With 200BB then 100BB stacks for the first and second hours I really wanted to get involved in a lot of pots and take a lot of the dead money that's available at the start. I'll post a few hands, as basically they were the only interesting hands I got in all tourney...
KK vs maniacVery loose player limps from HJ, SB calls, I have KK in the BB. I make it 6x, HJ calls, SB folds. Heads up to the flop of 988, I lead for 3/4 pot, he calls.
At this point his range is pretty wide, he's really LAG/tricky postflop he'd happily have called pre with a small/mid PP, SuitedC, or 2 high cards. Turn is a 2, board is rainbow.
I can fire again here but there's not really much I'm going to get value from double-barrelling, my hand is WAY strong against his range, and he's an aggro player so I check as I feel he's gonna bluff at the turn a LOT as he thinks I've given up with my AK. I check, he bets 3/4 pot, I call.
He bet immediately after I checked, and he bet really strong, staring me down as he made it. He most likely has air, I feel he's drawing slim to between 2 and 4 outs. Once again if I raise here he's folding and I'm not getting any more money in. I feel like I can let him peel another card and maybe he'll bluff me on the river. I take my time and do the standard pained call. ;)River is a T. I check, he bets 2500 into the 3500 pot. I call.
So JQ/TT/67 got there. But they only make up a small part of his range. I feel like his range is about 10% hands that have me beat, 40% small pairs, 50% air. Again I can't really value bet here, there's just not much he's calling with, so I check again and hope he bets. He bets aggressively again, and it's an easy call. No point in raising as there aren't really any hands in his range that he'll call with that I have beat. He tables 55, I take down the 8.5k pot.
AK into AAHJ (maniac from last hand, now has like 3.5k) limps, and BTN limps for 200 (2.3k behind), I'm in the BB with AKo.
HJ and BTN have been reeeally loose, limping with loads of trash... no-brainer all-in here. I ship it, HJ folds, BTN calls with AA. His aces hold and I now have 11.5k in chips.
Rigged :(Folded to BTN who makes it 2.5x (who's the AA guy from last hand now at 5k), he's playing really out of line LAG.
I call with 99, BB calls.
If I 3-bet here he's calling me with pretty much anything and playing 99 OOP against a shortstack calling station will be a nightmare. If I hit my 9 and he catches anything I will get his stack in, so I think calling here and passing up some immediate value is fine. 3 to the flop of 9TQ with 2 diamonds. I lead for just under pot, BB folds, he shoves, snap call for me. Pot is around 11k, he tables AQ and I have him crushed.
Turn J.
River K.
3.5% shot runner-runner. Brutal.
I head outside fo a few hands to take a break, and when I get back Barny Boatman has been moved in directly to my right. His banter was ace, was pretty great to get to play with him. He raised a guys 1/2 pot river bet with 7-high in one hand and took it down, was pretty sick.
Anyway, not a lot else happens at this table... and we get split after 20-30mins.
Table 2 (looose)A bunch of stuff happened at this table which is all really fucking boring as the stacks got down to the 20-30BB point. I basically just got no cards.
About 5 hands after sitting down a guy made it 1,400 at 100/200 blinds and I shoved AQs from the SB for 5.6k, took that down.
The only hand I really regret the way I played was this one. I've been at the table for like 1 orbit so don't really have any reads. 2 MP players limp. I have AK in the SB and raise to 6x (1200), both players call. Flop came T92. I fired a 1800 c-bet but should have absolutely just check-folded. Was a pretty bad mistake.
This put my down to around 3.5k. Doubled up 88 vs A6 or something, some utterly stupid call from a lone BB who was on tilt.
Then pretty much just got dealt nothing. I was hovering in the 10-20BBs level looking for spots to resteal but nothing came up. The table was just SO LOOSE as well that I felt I needed to tighten up a bit and couldn't steal/resteal so loose. Also I had Joe Beevers in the BB when I was BTN, which sucked! So basically blinded down to like 5k.
Buffet Report: This buffet was a solid 8/10 for sure. Proper unhealthy shit, pies, stew, sausage rolls, chicken, little sausages. Good buffet game Gala.
Table 3 (Hendon Mobbed)Pretty happy my table got broken up as I want to be able to push looser. I've got about 5k at 200/400-25 blinds.
Pretty happy the get Beevers out of my BB steal position too. I get up and go to the next table, who's sitting to my immediate left? Beevers again, ffs! Unbelievable, and he's got >average stack too. It could be worse though, I'm in pushbot mode anyway so it doesn't really matter. Barny Boatman is 2 to my right also, which makes for an interesting table.
Interesting Hendon HandJoe/Barny got involved in a really intersting hand where Joe opened from EP, Barny 3-bet from the SB, and the BB shoved. Joe wound up folding JJ, Barny called with QQ, and the BB had AA. They chatted for a while afterwards about the BBs range, was pretty interesting. Basically if BB's range is AA/KK obv it's a fold, but if he plays AK the same way and his range is AA/KK/AK then QQ has 40% equity, so it's a clear call. Joe was talking about calling with JJ because he knew Barny would have to fold everything but AA, and Joe would have been ahead of villain's AA/KK/AK range. Cool to hear some analysis from 2 guys with over $3.5m tourney wins behind them.
Nothing much happened at this table for me. I shoved 77 from the HJ and picked up blinds. that was about it. Mucked K2s with a 9BB stack to Mr Beevers, and he slyly exposes the Ace of spades to me as he tosses his cards to the dealer. It's a trick I like doing a lot live. When you show an opponent a strong hand it'll stick in their mind more, and they'll remember next time they think about raising your blind light. So that could make him think I might tighten up my steals against him, and with the fact I gave him a walk that hand I was all for giving his BB a good shafting over the next few orbits... unfortunately though we broke table again.
Table 4 (The death table)I sit down at the new table, glad to see that I don't recognise many players. However I've got 2 shorties to my right and everyone else has a big stack, which kind of sucks as I've got less than 10BB. I need to start shoving wide soon and it's difficult to do that with a bunch of loose bigstacks to my left. Oh, then Beevers sits down 3 to my left again, fairly standard now.
Blinds go up shortly after I get to the table, giving me 6BB. I muck 47o UTG, then muck 2 trash hands in the blinds to raises. Next hand folded to CO who's got 8BB, I've got 5.5BB. He limps. Now if I have fold equity over anyone at the table now, it's him... and if I shove over a limp it's gonna look a little stronger too so I might be more likely to fold out the blinds. I shove (K9s), BB and CO call. Flop blah, turn sadskajd, river busto.
OverallI'm real happy with the way I played, except that AK c-bet. But that was the only real mistake I reckon. The blinds structure got pretty steep, which I don't really mind, but when I'm getting cold carded through the 1/2 2/4 and 3/6 levels then there's just not a lot I can do. Just one of those tourneys.
The field was even softer than I expected, and I expected it to be soft. It's amazing how these live fields are made up. Stick "Main Event" on something and it just attracts all of these awful rich players, that combined with the sattellite entry folk makes up for a field with about 40% dead money. If I enter a $100 tourney online there isn't that much dead money in it, pretty mad considering this is a $1,100 buy-in.
TellsI don't really base my game on reads too much when playing live, but I picked up on some pretty good ones today. Watching players hands closely as they bet is really telling. I identified players hands trembling twice today when they put in raises pre, and both times they had AA. Strong betting and stare down is another obvious one, amazing how many players still do this lol.
It's pretty clear I am progressively more nitty the higher limit I'm playing. ;) This is fine as I'm trying to stay out of the way of regs, and just play pots with the big fish that are at my table. It's also a lot more low variance.
Big period of negative variance at shot-taking in the start of the month was pretty tough to take, particularly losing over $1k in an hour in 2/4 and 3/6 games. However I understand this is just variance and after a days break was in the correct mindset again to continue playing optimally.
